Queen Victoria's life to be dramatised for ITV

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert photographed at Buckingham Palace in 1860

The life of Queen Victoria is to be dramatised on ITV, starting with her ascension to the throne aged 18.

The eight-hour series will be the screenwriting debut for novelist Daisy Goodwin and will be made by Mammoth Screen, the producers of BBC One's Poldark and ITV's Endeavour.

Steve November, ITV's drama director, said: "She's a vibrant, fascinating character whose legacy lives on today."

Goodwin added: "Victoria was the first woman to have it all."

Goodwin became fascinated by Queen Victoria after reading her diaries

She said she her interest in the queen was sparked at university when she read her diaries: "all 62 million words of them [which] give an astonishingly vivid picture of her transformation from rebellious teenager into, to my mind, our greatest Queen.

"She's a woman whose personality leaps off the page - a tiny 4 foot 11 teenager who overnight became the most powerful woman in the world, and her candour and spirit makes for an irresistible heroine.

"She had a passionate marriage, nine children and was grandmother to most of Europe's royalty, but she also had a job, being Queen of the most important nation in the world."

November added that the series was "a chance to see the Victorian age through the eyes of the Queen herself for the first time". Queen Victoria was on the throne for 63 years until 1901.

Casting is under way for the drama, which starts filming in locations around the UK from September.

Goodwin has already written two novels set in the Victorian era, My Last Duchess and The Fortune Hunter and has also worked in TV, devising shows including Grand Designs, How Clean is Your House and The Life Laundry.

There have been several other dramatisations about Queen Victoria, including the films Mrs Brown (1997), starring Dame Judi Dench and Billy Connolly, and The Young Victoria (2009), starring Emily Blunt and Rupert Friend.

The queen was also a key character in Aardman's 2012 stop-motion animation The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists! in which she was voiced by Imelda Staunton.

In 2001, the BBC broadcast a two-part TV drama called Victoria and Albert, starring Victoria Hamilton, Jonathan Firth and Peter Ustinov.